


Apocrypha

by icecrystal2k



Series: Apocrypha [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icecrystal2k/pseuds/icecrystal2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcade is found out and tries to flee the Mojave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**_The Mojave Wasteland_ **

   Arcade crossed the Mojave waiting for the impact of a rifle shot. They'd want him alive, so ... Both knees. That was how the NCR made sure you didn't run. Then tourniquets on both thighs, and it wouldn't matter to them if the legs turned purple then black then died as they dragged him to McCarran. They'd have a few freelance interrogators on hand. They always did where the Enclave were concerned.

   It was night, about midnight, Arcade figured by the stars and moon. It was a new moon, barely visible, hanging like a shadow overhead with a pale fringe of earthshine. He could see the outline of clouds black against the stars on the eastern horizon. There was a slight charge in the air and the wind was shifting in patterns that would bring dust storms to life. They must be tracking him, but for once it seemed the heavens were on his side.

   He was picking his way across the dark landscape in a winding path around settlements so as not to be seen. It was slow going. He hadn't brought his Followers coat to the dam, all he wore while in the powersuit were his undershirt and grey shorts, and it was another bit of luck that he had borrowed an engineer's dark blue jumpsuit.

   He had set off back west, perhaps a stupid thing to do, but it was even stupider trying to cross the Colorado anywhere near Hoover Dam. The NCR were on both banks, spreading north and south, looking for any Legion trying to crawl away home.

   So he was moving toward the glow in the west. Vegas was the sinkhole into which the Mojave drained. The city had its own suction, not quite give me your huddled masses, more congeal with the rest of the filth. It wasn't his final destination, but it was a stop on the way. He might still have friends there, he might be able to ...

   Sand and dust whipped his body. Arcade had nothing to cover his mouth and nose and no way to protect his eyes, and he made for the nearest ridge. He moved along the rocky terrain until he found a gap to wedge himself in. The crevice turned out to be something like a man-sized cave, with enough space that he could sit cross-legged and think. The dried blood on his clothing, all other peoples', flaked and cracked as he folded his limbs and pulled himself into a miserable huddle.

   His wits had been scattered and now he was scraping them back together. They were a sad little pile but as he sat and felt the sand beneath him, the rough, sharp rock digging into his back, and the soft throb of dry exhaustion in his eyes, his racing mind finally slowed and started to deliberate.

   He'd need things. Caps, clothes. The Remnants had caches across the Mojave, but most of them were west of Vegas. He had his own little stash in Freeside, closer than any of the Remmants' resources. If he could get to it, he would be in a better position. This was the narrow band of practicality that he was following through the dark.

   Judah, Daisy, Johnson, the rest. The Remnants. They had swept away from the battlefield, leaving echoes of confusion, conflicting accounts, their story already taking on the shade of myth. They hadn't stayed to be found out. If he was captured, if he was made to talk...

   If he fled to Daisy and the others they would help him, but Arcade couldn't do that. Not just the danger, but they were settled. Any roots they had put down were shallow, but at their age they couldn't make another desperate march from the center. Uproot them once more and they might wither and die. On the other hand, the thought of disappearing and leaving them with the agony of uncertainty, was something Arcade couldn't abide. It would break Daisy's heart and she would never stop grieving, even if she did it in her own quiet, strong way.

   He had the idea of appealing to Julie. There was no love lost between the NCR and the Followers. He couldn't rely on Julie and the others to shield him, and he didn't want them to try. He just needed a few hours of sanctuary to get his things together. He could -- get a message to Daisy. Get a message to _him_...

   No. The choking sensation was back. The Enclave was a spreading stain, a sickness. The Remnants were infected and they were living with their disease in the isolation of wisdom and age. But Arcade was younger, weaker, still a vector, a dangerous man. No more. He had seen the last of the Courier at Hoover Dam. All the opportunities he had been waiting for, all the doors that had opened, had slammed shut again. And that, for the moment, meant that Arcade didn't much care what happened to himself. He would live or he would die, no preference, as long as it happened somewhere far away.

   Arcade brushed at the flaking blood on his clothing. He couldn't see it in the dark but he could smell it. Blood shed by people following orders, brandishing their weapons and whatever idealism sung in their souls. The sweat pouring off of him had given their blood a sticky second life in some places.

   Arcade still had his own ideals, even if they had been dropped in the dirt, trodden on, and kicked around the edges. Living them was another matter, but he had been through this before. The sense of time only half-spent, opportunities not taken and chances wasted. It was rebounding on him, the embarrassment and futility, after the flush of pride he had felt fighting at Hoover Dam. Finally, a moment he felt he had seized by the throat, determined to choke every last bit of life out of it -- and here he was again, head down and well out of it, alone. He felt humiliation, like when one looks back on what a wretched, precocious child they had been, but he was too tired to be angry.

   What next? After survival in the here-and-now, the future was a dull ache insisting on his attention. That was life, wasn't it. Endless provisioning against trials to come.

    _If we knew What we receive, we would either not accept Life offer'd, or soon beg to lay it down, Glad to be so dismist in peace._

   Arcade knew very well what lay ahead. (Not in any specific _geographic_ sense -- the vast eastern plains were home to the Legion, the Enclave had a band of influence cutting the continent in two, from the Great Lakes to the Great Bay, but only rumor and hearsay filtered back to fill the NCR's maps.) More loneliness. More suffering, more dead-eyed people crawling through their lives, hoping that someone would help them. Arcade had strong hands, a strong back, and a mind full of knowledge that could ease countless burdens. It would be worthwhile. He would know that what he was doing was good, even if he would feel nothing. (A heart broken too many times goes numb.)

   So be it. He knew the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Pathagoreans, the Cynics, the ancient bearded philosophies. He had his own brand of coping, drawn from a flicker of optimism> and a well of personal strength. Life was looking into the chasm, seeing the worst, and going on regardless. Helping others who stumbled along the way. He would carry on teaching, doctoring, expending his learning and his art in small sideways and byways. He had never yet given up. Not everyone could change the world, but doing good for the short time they were in it -- life had reduced him, slowly but surely, curtailed his expectations, made mockery of his ambitions, calloused his sentiments, but at his core this was what he believed. This was the onus of everyone who was strong, everyone who had a gift. Ease suffering. Help humanity, no matter how high or low. That sense of duty had kept him going before, and it propped him up now amid the aching and exhaustion. There would be no joy in it, but he would live.

_**General Oliver's Compound, Hoover Dam** _

   The Courier had finally managed to elbow his way inside Oliver's office. Oliver and Moore, who had signed the order for Arcade's capture, were surrounded by junior officers reporting on the situation on the east bank and by flocks of assistants as they oversaw the embryonic rejuvenation efforts. They'd need to quarter scores more men now that they had the Legion on the run, they'd need additional engineers if they were going to get the Dam back up to full capacity by the end of the year ... and all of that generated a lot of red tape. Their acquisition requests would have to be re-figured; all sorts of numbers had to be crunched and orders signed.

   The Courier had fought his way to the front of this queue, seething because a man's life was more important than organizing the fucking paperwork. He had come to put Arcade's case before the ranking NCR brass in the Mojave. He was angry to the point of manslaughter when Oliver used his arrival as an impromptu _coffee break_ , ignored his fury, and started on about the glorious new age of the Bear:

   "We're back on track. We're going to get the Mojave in order, for once in its miserable life. No more Legion, no fucking Enclave, no fuckin' Brotherhood." Oliver was puffed up with pride. "You did good, I won't argue. We're giving you that shiny twig, aren't we? But this is the big time. We've got a nation to build."

   The Courier dug his fingernails into his leather-clad palms. "He saved countless NCR wounded --"

   "Yeah, but he's one of those Follower fucks, he said so. He'd have saved just as many Legion given half the chance. No loyalty in that bunch. At least their white coats make it easy to keep an eye on 'em. If they weren't so conspicuous, we'd really be worried." Oliver snorted.

   "If you think the Followers are some kind of fifth column resistance, you're wrong." The Courier really only had one particular Follower in mind, but he needed to argue the broader cause. "There's nothing subversive about them. They just want to help.”

   “Nobody just _helps_ ,” Oliver said dismissively. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

   The Courier tried to ignore the twitching ganglia in his brain. Kill, kill, kill. “They certainly don't condone Enclave doctrine. Any hint of Enclave sympathies in Gannon, the Followers would have uncovered them long ago."

   "Maybe they did. The Followers don't tell us anything. They take care of their own, turn a lot of blind eyes. Can't be trusted," Oliver repeated.

   " _I_ can vouch for him."

   Oliver paused. He gave the Courier a patronizing little smile. In a tone that said the Courier's offer meant precisely fuck all: "I've got work to do."

 

   Boone was waiting in the busy hall outside Oliver's office. Since they'd gotten back and heard what happened to Gannon, Boone had felt like a deathclaw handler, hanging close at the Courier's side in case he started ripping chunks out of people.

   The doors opened.

   " -- _right up your ass_ ," the Courier snarled, striding out of the office. The Courier glared around the busy hallway, sending people's eyes ricocheting away from his wherever they met, and finally his blazing eyeline landed on Boone.

   Boone calmly pushed off the wall as the Courier gave him a curt nod and stalked off down the hallway. They reached the stairwell and the Courier paused to make a frustrated face and exhaled.

   "I'm leaving."

   Boone's eyebrows raised, hidden by his glasses and beret. "Then I guess I am, too."

   "Back to Vegas."

   "All right." Boone followed the Courier as he took the stairs two at a time.

   The Courier was trying to think around the rage. Vegas seemed the best place to start. He was sure Arcade hadn't gone east right in the middle of an enemy retreat. The NCR would have found him. The Courier didn't know where he _had_ gone, but a lot of people came into Vegas from all directions, and someone might give him a lead. Arcade was smart enough not to wear some kind of black-and-white, memorably checkered monstrosity, but no one could just sink into the sand, everyone left traces. They would go right now, him and Boone, and he'd be in the city with his ear to the ground by mid-morning.

_**Freeside** _

   Arcade slept out the dust storm and when he woke it was nearing daylight. He went in search of water. He made a thief of himself, skulking around the outskirts of a cluster of shacks to steal a few metallic-tasting mouthfuls from their well. He walked the rest of the day, taking the occasional break, avoiding settlements, wildlife, and the roads, tearing open the occasional cactus, and covered the rest of the stretch between Hoover Dam and Vegas.

   He reached the North Gate of Freeside at nightfall.

   Toward the Vegas side of the slums, Arcade saw something burning -- a building, possibly, as the flickering light reached high into the sky. Columns of smoke flanked the glow, and distant voices.

   As predicted, things had kicked off in Freeside when the Second Battle of Hoover Dam had broken out. MPs had been hurried to Outer Vegas to assist the troops already quartered there. This had strained the tenuous peace between the Kings and the NCR. Reinforcement troops were on their way from the west, still twelve or fifteen hours out, a proper occupation force marching on the city. For now, though, in the aftermath of the battle at the dam and riots in Freeside, the way was open for wanted men to slip in or out of Outer Vegas.

   There was no one at the North Gate entrance. Arcade entered the slum with his head down. It smelled like it always did. Burning tires and excrement. This section of Freeside was cool, dark, deceptively quiet. Signs of unrest were hard to discern against the existing decay, particularly in the dark, but he didn't see signs of serious violence. The epicenter of the trouble must be toward the city, and Arcade was glad for this; for himself, and also because his fellow Followers were as safe as could be expected. Arcade crossed the train tracks toward the Old Mormon Fort.

   Beatrice was outside of the gates, leaning on the scarred sign, smoking a cigarette. The sudden lightness in himself surprised him, he was manically glad to see her -- Arcade hurried the last few steps toward her.

   "Beatrice, it's me,” he said. His words were fast with nervousness. “I --"

   Her rough voice was guarded. "We heard all about it, Arcade."

    "Great. I need --"

    She had her revolver in her hand and raised the barrel. Arcade, who had felt himself just on the brink of safety, suddenly realized it was really the edge of a cliff. He took a step back.

    Beatrice's gummy, almost-lidless eyes were apologetic. "I'm out here in case you showed up. I'm not supposed to let you in. Go away."

    "... Go away?" Arcade asked incredulously.

    "The NCR’s already been sniffing around asking questions. I'm supposed to report if I see you," Beatrice said. "But I won't. Go."

    Everything was spinning and his voice rose in fear and frustration. "Can I talk to Julie?"

    One wooden gate creaked open. "I'm right here, Gannon." Julie stepped outside of the fort in her off-duty fifth or sixth-hand blazer. She had a mug in her hand; Beatrice's dinner rations. She approached the two figures, waving her free hand for Arcade to keep his voice down, until she joined them.

    Arcade looked desperately over her shoulder at the fort’s open gate. "Julie, I need help. Just a day or two."

    Julie was infuriatingly silent as she passed the mug to Beatrice. Then turned to her wayward brother in philosophy. "You can't be seen here, Arcade. The Followers don't associate with the Enclave."

    "I'm not with the -- Julie, you know me," Arcade protested.

    "Not as well as I thought. I'm sorry, Arcade." Julie's voice and eyes were hard. You didn't make it as far as she had without a core of steel. "The NCR are just looking for an excuse. If we don't toe their line, they're going to send us packing. What happens to these people then?"

    For one horrible moment Arcade _didn't care_ what happened to the drunks, the junkies, and the gamblers. What happens to _me_? His brain felt like it was trapped in his skull and trying to claw its way out in a panic.

    "You _know me_." Pleading this time, he hated to hear it in his voice but he was so scared he could barely think.

    "There's nothing I can do. It's better if you just go, Arcade. They've stepped up their patrols, they're already having trouble with the Kings and the residents. Take these and get out of here." She dug in her pocket and held out a handful of caps.

    Arcade looked from Julie to Beatrice. Her revolver was half-heartedly pointed at him. She was trying to be professionally aloof, but the tip of her tongue was nervously playing on her dry lips.

    Arcade didn't want their caps. He had wanted their trust, their friendship, for them to show some faith in him. They had lived and worked together, dangerous living and dangerous work -- for God's sake -- this was all it came to? Twelve caps. Even if he had wanted them, his arms were like lead. He couldn't move his fingers.

    "Take them."

    He didn't. Julie dumped them back in her pocket. "Inside, Beatrice. I'm sorry, Arcade."

    Arcade stared without seeing as the two women left him in the dark street. He heard the Mission doors thud closed.

    Alone, then.

    Torn away from what little he had been holding on to, and cast onto the violent sea. The realization, the enormity of it, the big, empty night and his vulnerability, froze him. He was rooted to the spot for several moments, until the smash of glass and a deep shout finally knocked him back into the present. Some fight, somewhere down one of the blocks.

    He had to stay out of sight. These people were weak, they couldn't withstand the NCR. He was feeling protective, trying to make up for his selfishness. What would the NCR do to the people of Freeside if they thought they might find him here? Burn them out like vermin? Pogroms were more typical of the Legion, but from what Arcade had heard, Colonel Moore wouldn't have been out of place in Caesar's tent. Apart from the no-girls-allowed policy...

    Maybe they'd just offer clean NCR money. Someone would take it. Arcade couldn't blame them. There was little room for nobility when you were eating the rats who had eaten your dead.

   Now Arcade had to decide. Stay here in Freeside, or back out into the wastes? He could head for a safehouse, swing north and -- he was started out of his thoughts as an NCR patrol came through the North Gate at the end of the street. Arcade crossed from the Mormon Fort and went down the adjoining block, southward, swinging around the heaps of rubble and into one of the blasted-out houses. He crossed the boundary into the King's territory.

    The cosmic bargaining that came on the heels of any selfish thought followed him. He believed in self-sacrifice, and not just as a warm, fuzzy hypothetical. He had gone without to share his rations with newcomers. If his worth was weighed on a scale, Good might balance out Bad. Burn him all up, smear his elements on a table, and there might be a few flecks of gold amid the black ash. (Metaphyically. He was being metaphysical; he knew for a fact the human body contained about ten nanoliters of Au.) He had never been sure of his work, nor convinced of the use of it, but he had never succumbed to that pitch-black nihilism that beat down some of the Followers.

    Like Jacob Hoff. Arcade remembered standing with him at a corner, waiting for a few of the Kings to show up with some extra clothing. They had been waiting a quarter of an hour, not saying a word, until Jacob broke the silence:

    "Christ, look at them."

    Arcade had looked. A bunch of rag-wrapped little bodies were chasing each other down the street. The boy in front had something in his hands, a toy, maybe, and the three behind were running him down, their eyes intense, their teeth bared and grinning. A game. But they had the same look when they chased rats. It wasn't really a game at all.

    Jacob had shook his head. "You ever wonder? Just wonder -- what the fuck's the point of them?" Jacob's hands were shaking. He had been sliding for awhile. They all knew it. He waved his trembling fingers at the children. "Any of them. Eat and shit, go to sleep, wake up to do it all again. Then grow up and fuck somebody and make more screaming little mouths to feed. What's the fuckin' point."

    The perfect opportunity to intervene, to say something that would help Jacob, turn him back toward the light … and Arcade hadn't known what to say. They were alone, he was full of ideas and empathy, but no words had come. _Not a people person._ Arcade had watched the pack of children as they tumbled by, the Kings had shown up, and that night Jacob had gotten high and angry, smashed up one of the tents, and left. He’d haunted the gutter until the Courier had sent him back. (Arcade hadn’t been able to look him in the eye. He was back, that was what really mattered, but Arcade hadn’t done anything to save him.)

    Why did some persevere when others faltered? Why did Arcade put one foot in front of the other while Jacob was sinking in chems? It wasn't easy to keep above it all, to maintain a sense of responsibility, dedication, and sacrifice. Truly good people, Arcade thought, were those who had an endless capacity for those things and more. But for an average, weak man, it was possible, too. It was possible if it came naturally, from a guilt that was as much a part of you as your DNA. Arcade was trying to stymie echoing evils, slay personal demons. It didn't make him a great person, hardly even a good one, but it drove him.

    He came out of a doorway just down the block from the King's School of Impersonation. The blaring music from the loudspeakers and the neon glare of the signs beamed down the street. He stood in the shadow of the building to consider his next move -- and then a voice broke into his thoughts.

    "Hey, buddy." It was a group of Kings. They was patrolling this part of the street. The King had every one of his men on alert, now that the NCR were ascendant. The one who spoke was young, smooth-faced, and moving like the jacket was still new on him. "You're one of the Followers, ain't ya?"

    "No."

    They crowded around Arcade. The kid's light eyebrows came together under the fringe of his black hair. "No? I could'a sworn -- well, but, you were with that Courier. The one who helped us out."

    Arcade felt a spasm like a laugh or a dry heave. "You've got me confused with someone else."

    "No, I'm sure -- when you and he brought Rex back. You were with him. Wasn't he, fellas?"

    One of the others nodded.

    Arcade shook his head stiffly. "Never heard of him.” There was a dead rat on the sidewalk; its hind legs had been torn off. "No, I'm a tourist on your lovely streets. A man who has not been to Freeside is always conscious of an inferiority."

   Still that confused, now pitying look from the gang members. "You all right? Somebody hit you or something? You better come with us -- the King'll sort this out."

   The sliding doors of the beat-up blue traincars (a chokepoint, from the days before the Kings had brought relative order to Freeside) behind them opened and the NCR patrol stepped through. Annoyance flooded Arcade. If he got caught because of these absolute mor--

   The Kings were suddenly as alert as Arcade was. The tallest of the group was wrapping his fingers through his brass knuckles, and he nodded to the kid. "More soldier boys. Get Pacer."

   The kid jerked his thumb toward the neon lights and nodded at Arcade. "Come with me."

   There was little else to do, at least not without making a scene. The burlier Kings went to confront the NCR patrol as Arcade followed the young man down the sidewalk and into the School of Impersonation.

_**The Lucky 38** _

   The Courier and Boone reached Vegas just before noon. The latest buzz was that the NCR had reinforcements moving in from the west. As soon as word of the Hoover Dam victory had come back to the embassy, the MPs were sent out in force, parading the Bear so everyone understood that they were now rule and law on Vegas's streets. The MPs left the NCR embassy compound carrying weapons, something they hadn't been allowed under Mr. House, and the show of strength smothered a lot of opposition in the cradle. Most of the residents of New Vegas, a disorganized and largely unarmed populace, barely batted an eye. _So the NCR would run things now_ , seemed to be the common sentimentt. _All right._

   The Three Families, however, weren't going to roll over and play dead. The NCR troops and MPs weren't yet brave enough to go into the casinos to force the point: no, they'd wait for their reinforcements.

   Once they arrived at the 38, the Courier disappeared down to the streets with little explanation. Boone and Cass were left to their own devices. He staggered back late that night for food and sleep, not having had more than a cat nap or two since the battle. When he woke the next morning he told Boone and Cass what they already knew: it was time for him to go.

   In the immediate sense, he needed to visit Crocker at the embassy. He'd be back to get his things that afternoon, and then he was leaving for good. He offered Cass or Boone the suite, if they wanted to set up permanent shop, but they had both made their own plans.

   That, then, was the end of it.

   They spent the morning packing. The Courier, back from the embassy, Boone, and Cass worked silently as they stowed their things and got ready to go their separate ways. Their presence over the last few months had thawed the frozen suite, but now the chill was seeping back in as they all packed up. Everyone was already focused on the future, on the next legs of their respective journeys, their own roads that would take them far away from the rooms they had shared here. They had breathed a bit of life into the suite, but the warmth of fellowship was broken and the suite was a corpse getting cold.

   The Courier saw Cass out. She gave him a kiss and a tight squeeze that nearly popped his ribs, and a promise -- a threat -- to keep in touch. The road knew its own. They'd meet again. The Courier grinned at her certainty, and promised to do his best. Then he returned to the suite, where Boone had everything he owned spread out on the bed like pieces of something dissected, and was carefully packing his single, NCR-regulation backpack.

   From the doorway, the Courier watched him work. "You heading out, too?"

   "Yep. Re-upped at McCarran yesterday," Boone said. The medal on his beret was gleaming. "Back with 1st Recon."

   "Good." The Courier watched Boone stowing his things expertly, folding his clothes up tightly, making the bits and pieces fit into every last corner of the bag. One of the marks of a true soldier was just how much they could cram into their backpack.

   Boone had half an eye on the Courier as he worked. He looked calm, but it was forced. A live wire of tension just below the surface. Boone had seen and heard enough to recognized what the Courier was feeling. It was just like after Carla, when he'd grabbed up his rifle and gone after them. The Courier was trying to hide it, but his insides were screaming at him to do the same. Get out there and _find what was missing_. "I've got a few days before I have to report. If you need anything done."

   The Courier said, very genuinely, "Thank you." And then back to forced brightness and an outright lie: "I'm not sure what I'm going to do next." He made a show of shrugging.

   So the kid thought he didn't know. Boone snorted. "You're going to find him."

   The Courier blinked in surprise. Even though Boone never looked like he was listening (hell, you weren't sure even had his _eyes open_ half the time), you couldn't get anything past him.

   "Yeah," the Courier admitted. "You okay with that?" Even if he wasn't, the Courier wasn't going to be dissuaded -- but if he and Boone ever crossed paths again, the Courier wanted to know where they'd stand.

    Boone didn't reply. He was NCR to the bone, but he appreciated the grey spaces between black and white regs. The black was the writing that said Gannon was to be captured alive, if possible, for a nice, long chat somewhere underneath McCarran. Down deep in the service tunnels where the screaming wouldn't bother any of the tender rookies doing their press-ups. That black writing was on white paper, which was stamped with Colonel Moore's seal. Orders from the top. It was binding on Boone as a soldier of the NCR to try to take Gannon in if he saw him. The grey between those two things was the debt Boone owed the Courier and the shit that had gone down at Bitter Springs.

   Was he okay with it? Boone wasn't going to screw things up for him, not after the Courier had found him tangled in his own fucked-up life and managed to set him free. And he wasn't going to let something like Bitter Springs happen again. He had a healthy soldier's respect for his orders and his superiors, but no more mindless obedience.

   Boone didn't think much _about_ Arcade Gannon. He wasn’t on Boone’s radar. They'd never had anything to talk about. Not a warm guy, but then, Craig wasn't Mr. Personable himself. They had gotten comfortable giving each other silent nods, the occasional "hey" ("I know you exist.") when they almost crashed into each other in the suite. What Boone thought _of_ him was pretty simple. Anyone willing to leave NCR and hike it to the ass end of civilization to live up to his knees in the dregs of Vegas was a little crazy, maybe, but noble. The Followers were the NCR's disorganized cousins, that's how most of the enlisted saw them, and that feeling similarly extended from Boone to Arcade. Kind of a distant relation. A lot of brains, not a lot of sense. Not cut out for wandering the world alone. It was good the Courier was going after him. (Boone thought the Courier was a dreamer too, but, hell, he'd managed to live this long. Had more common sense than he let on.) Good luck to them, Boone thought.

   Boone started doing up the clasps on his backpack. "I'm fine with it."

   The Courier smiled.

    Boone was done, and the Courier's bag was already on his back. The two men went to the elevator and Boone pressed the call button to open the doors.

   "Last one out, hit the lights!" the Courier said. Boone was already in the elevator car and gave the Courier an unreadable look. "Oh. I guess that's me."

   They had found the fuse box, hidden behind one of the brittle, crumbling posters. There was no need to turn off the lights, but it felt final. The Courier flipped the heavy switch and closed the thin metal door, and the place seemed to instantly ice over, dim like a mausoleum. He went to the open, brightly-lit elevator car. He hit the button for the casino floor and the doors closed, plunging the Lucky 38 Suite into final darkness.

   Boone was heading to Camp Forlorn Hope, where his squad was waiting. But he thought he might take the longer way, via Novac, check up on the place. Check up on Manny.

   The Courier was headed across the street. He had gotten a message with URGENT, BABY was written across the top in particular Chairmen form. He and Boone both slowed once they reached the sidewalk, and stood together awkwardly for a moment. They had walked a lot of miles together, they had gotten used to each other's strides. Each had their own places to be, but neither were really that eager to part.

   The Courier finally put out his hand. "So, Boone. Take care of yourself."

   Boone’s smile was actually warm. “You too." He took the hand and they shook in one final, solid connection. "You've got six favors stored up."

   "Six?" The Courier couldn't tell if Boone was kidding.

   "Six. Call them in some day."

   "I'll try." The Courier had lived life untethered. He moved between hubs, in the empty spaces. Having other people to rely on was new... And he'd grown to like it. These ties with Cass, with Boone, they would stretch with the distance between them but they wouldn't break. The handshake cemented it between them, and with mutual understanding he and Boone went their separate ways.

   Something even stronger was calling.

* * *


	2. Chapter Two

**_The Tops_ **

   With the situation at the dam in hand and a new land to annex, reinforcement NCR troops had done a hard march east to New Vegas and arrived overnight. Now every Vegas street seemed to team with armed men in uniform. The Courier weaved around groups of them and into the lobby of the Tops. Swank was at his usual spot at the desk, still running the show, despite the fact that he and the Chairmen were now several rungs lower on the Vegas food chain.

   The lobby was full of the usual suspects: a few gamblers, a few promoters ready to swoop down and coax you to the card tables. Swank spotted the Courier, nodded him over and leaned forward on the desktop.

   Swank's smile was martini-smooth, but his eyes were soft with sympathy. He’d grown to like the kid. Filled up the Aces with good acts, taken those mafioso creeps at Gomorrah down a peg or two, given Benny the fink a fairer deal than he probably deserved. Lost a hell of a lot of chips on the slot machines. "A little bird told Swank that you've lost something."

   The Courier had a damn good poker face, but his eyebrows twitched. "It's not in Lost and Found, is it?"

   "No, baby, but I've got some information that might help you track this elusive thing."

   The doors opened and an NCR envoy entered, a lieutenant and two privates. They were the veneer of NCR diplomacy, sent out because running rough-shod over the Three Families was still an iffy proposition. Two Tops promoters advanced on the NCR personnel and started trying to coax them into staying for dinner and a show, or maybe a spin on the roulette wheel. (Standing orders from Swank: stall them, ball them.)

   "Okay. Let's hear it." _Quickly_ , was the Courier's unspoken suggestion.

   "Check with the 18-karat cats in Freeside,” Swank said. “You know the ones, crash-boom-bang."

   The Kings. "Thanks."

   Swank had filled Benny's shoes as Big Daddy, daddy-o, and it must be going to his head. He was feeling downright ... paternal. He wanted to give the kid a little encouragement. "If you love something, let it go, right? That's what they say. And if it comes back... well, according to ol' Swank's intel, it _tried_ to come back. But there were complications." Swank's eyes moved to the three brown uniforms standing in his lobby. "Dig?"

   "Dug," the Courier said. "What do I owe you?"

   "Nothing, baby. Gratis, for my best customer." Swank's mask didn't slip. He winked and gave a little nod, flashing his teeth at the Courier. "Good luck, kid." Swank turned to the NCR lieutenant fighting past the Chairmen promoters and storming toward the reception desk. "Hey hey, baby! Welcome to the Tops! You and your boys come to swing?"

   The Courier ducked out quietly. Vegas's libertarian style was cramped, but the unswerving Chairman charm was set to endure.

   As he emerged onto the street, the Courier noticed another of the black-armoured rangers. They’d been hunting for someone, circling through Vegas like vultures high in the sky, and now it seemed they had set their eyes on him. Could be that he was a dangerously high-profile lackey gone rogue, could be they had connected a few dots between him and a certain wanted war criminal. Either way, he was content to play the mouse for now. Things to do, places to be.

   Besides. There was a lot more leeway to turn cat in Freeside’s benighted streets.

**_The King's School of Impersonation_ **

    The tension between the NCR and the Kings had hardened into a standoff. They were nominally partners, but first there was a test of wills to be settled. The King wasn't going to play fetch or play dead. He'd work with them for the people, but he wasn't going to kowtow to the bastards in brown.

    The NCR, naturally, saw the matter differently. They weren't keen on a pocket of resistance in their midst. They had New Vegas under their control, even the casinos would slowly sidle into line as they saw the benefits of catering to all those new soldiers, drunk and stupid on their first tours out of California. Having rolled through north Freeside without much fuss, the NCR were holding near the Follower's Fort and had Vegas secured, leaving the Kings a sliver of breathing room in between.

   The Courier got through the lockdown by handing out a few hundred caps and a bit of persuasion, and entered Freeside to find the Kings equally up in arms. They were holding their own for now, but they wouldn't stand a chance if the NCR went full shock and awe. The Courier got the sense that the Kings themselves knew it, because they immediately took him to be a negotiator on behalf of the NCR. Without having to lay out a lie or a bribe, he was ushered before the King.

    The King was at his usual table in front of the stage. He was tired and defiant. Rex was at his feet. When he saw the Courier his ears perked up and a few sparks leapt in his transparent brain case, and the King reached down to pat his flank.

    "You here on their part?" The King asked shortly.

    "Your men thought so, but I'm here on my own part."

    "So you aren't working for them." The King was not in the mood for subtlety.

    "No. The NCR and I -- aren't on good terms."

    The King thought it over and nodded. "That's fine by me. I wasn't looking forward to negotiating with _you_." His eyebrows did an exhausted like shrug. "What do you want?"

    "I'm looking for someone. Arcade Gannon, one of the Followers. I heard --"

    "Yeah. He's here."

    Here? He had been _here_ , all this time? Why would he -- _what an idiot_ , coming back to Vegas. Of all the places --

    "He was real nice to me about Rex. I thought I'd do him a favor, too. And any enemy of the NCR's an awful good friend of mine just now." The defiance and anger in his slow voice betrayed the wild streak inside, the animal that wanted above all else to be and stay free. Dangerous business, putting the King in a cage.

    "Where is he?”

    "Upstairs. We aren't so used to having guests, but we found him a spot. I suppose you could go see 'im. Come back later and we’ll talk."

    Arcade had been put up in one of the storage rooms on the third floor, out of sight, out of the way. The Courier made his way up the flights of broad, shallow stairs, feeling the give in the scuffed wooden floorboards. They sprung back against the soles of his boots, accompanied by a rising smell and the hint of something heavy and waxy. He wondered vaguely if it was holy -- like when the tribals burned things in sewn-up tents and saw visions. This had been a place of worship, the King had said so.

    The storage room was at the back of the building. The Courier paused at the door, suddenly all pins and needles and stinging apprehension in his veins.

    "Come in."

* * *

    Arcade was loosely hugging his knees, sitting on a dingy grey mattress, his back against the wall. Clear line of sight to the door. He hadn’t planned on getting caught in the pissing match between the King and the NCR, but a day later here he was. He had done a little seeing-to of some of the gang members as recompense for food.

   He was tense. The knock made him jump. Then, as the door swung open, every drop of blood turn to ice. His heart simultaneously leapt up and sank, or tried to, something twisted up in his chest. He was almost sick. And all he could do was stare.

    The Courier smiled. "Hi."

    It took a long moment before Arcade recovered and forced the word, but finally, " ... Hi?"

   “What’re you _doing_ here?”

    Arcade stabbed him with a look. His words were dry ice. "Immersion. I’ve decided to live among them. To learn their ways, wear their clothes, speak in their tongues. 'Uh huh'.”

    Snarky Arcade. It was his defense, his shield. Always equipped, but when it was shining like adamant and trying to blind, it meant Arcade was at his weakest and most unhappy. The Courier came into the room and looked at Arcade's little space amid the tangle of broken desks, chairs, and rusting music stands. There was a bottle of beer on the floor beside him, and the shells from a handful of pinyon nuts. “How’s that going for you?”

“Oh, brilliantly. I’m making new friends. I’m going to get a very flattering haircut. I’m even going to learn to gyrate.”

The Courier prodded inside his cheek with his tongue thoughtfully. Chilly reception. "You're in a good mood."

    "I'm really not." The dodging, the swagger, the seen-it-all collapsed. Arcade drummed his fingertips on the floorboards that had long since lost their waxy shine. "You ... bastard." _This is your fault._ He tried to force himself to smile, but his face was like broken glass. Fractured, sharp, desperate. He looked as if he might cry.

    "I'm sorry."

    Arcade scoffed weakly. "You should be." He let his head fall back against the wall, looking beyond the Courier to the stained ceiling. He sighed. "I'm joking."

   "Quite the comedian.” The Courier was in an uncomfortable limbo. He wanted Arcade to give him an opening, this guarded circling felt ridiculous.

   "You shouldn't be here."

   "Where should I be?"

   Arcade's mental state was wavering unpleasantly between antipodes. He should have loved the Courier for coming for him, a dangerous, inconsequential nothing. Very ... romantic. But there was something else inside. Anger. "You're their savior, aren't you? You're the man who brought law and order to the Mojave, turned back the Legion, slaughtered Caesar and the Monster of the East. You should be smiling and waving at the troops. Well done, boys, keep up the good work. Or maybe civilian PR. A victory tour, town to town. The shining hero of the hour, here to tell the little people -- ‘you already know about the death, don't you? Well, here come the taxes.’” Arcade snorted. “I’m sure they’d thank you a thousand times over, build the statues in your honor, because everything’s going to be _great_ from here on out.”

   Arcade nodded at the walls, denoting Freeside and the city beyond. “You’ve seen it out there.” The barricades, the stand-off, the squeeze. His voice was dark. “Well done."

   The Courier was quiet. Arcade needed to dish it out and, yes, he deserved it.

   "You said ..." Arcade’s voice broke because that was _it_ , one place of pain more bruised and raw than all the others. Disappointment. Disappointment with the way things had turned out for everyone ... and particularly, as unattractive and self-pitying as it was, for himself. Arcade had believed the Courier could do anything, even keep him safe. Ungracious, harsh, bitter disappointment was making him angry. If the Courier couldn't set him free no one could and his entire life, from first to last, was going to be one long, terrifying struggle. Always caught in the current, always seeing frightening shapes looming in the water around him. No one would pull him to shore. Duty said _go on with it_ ; his body was tired and his heart was angry. "Go away. I might make it alone. Go do something for the people here, the NCR listens to you."

   "I'm persona non grata. The NCR is … its own beast. I told Oliver where to shove it." The Courier shrugged.

    Arcade looked up. "Why."

   "To find you." His voice was uncharacteristically meek.

   Arcade’s brows pulled together in an angry V behind the black rims of his glasses. "You know, when I met you, I didn't think you were a _complete_ idiot." Yet the acid in Arcade's words was diluted by ... just by the sight of him. Standing over him with his long limbs wrapped in dark leather, and an open look in his eyes. That strange sense of devotion. Not like a dog, not some mindless animal devotion, but like a sworn friend, ally ... partner. Like someone who had thrown their entire lot in with yours, for better or worse, and was ready and willing to fight for better.

   Endearing. Absolutely terrifying.

   A long moment passed while the radio downstairs seeped up through the floorboards, a warbling voice and tinny music. The Courier shifted, the floor creaked under his boots, and Arcade waited and hoped for a coup de foudre, some resounding sign that he deserved this, that it was right, that it would be _okay_. Any assurance to set him at ease. But of course nothing like that came. Just more thoughts, always more thoughts. The Followers had chopped him out like gangrene. Set against the Courier, it was night and day. Arcade had told him everything, it had all come to the worst, and the Courier didn't care. He still wanted …

   What about the people here? They deserved better. Whatever Arcade wanted, whatever the Courier wanted, that shouldn’t matter. Arcade hated to see someone who could _do something_ thrown that influence away. Selfish. The Courier didn’t look self-satisfied, though. He looked tense, guilty, because Arcade’s words had been hitting home.

   Arcade didn’t want to hurt him. It welled up suddenly. Arcade realized he was reacting against himself, against his own fears and uncertainties. Lashing at someone else for failing to live up to the standards Arcade fell short of every day of his life. His annoyance softened, and the naked fact of the Courier's dedication, the realization that this was what he wanted most, that he was wanted, too, made Arcade's throat tight and ... and that was enough. He motioned the Courier to him, not quite trusting his voice.

   The Courier put his things down and joined Arcade on the thin mattress, kneeling in front of him to get a good look. They had only been apart for a couple of days. It felt longer. Arcade was sunburned across his cheeks, nose, and forehead, the pink of the burns was deepening into red. The sunburn didn't hide the dark circles under his eyes. He was wearing gray jeans and a white shirt that the Kings had scrounged up.

   Arcade grabbed one of the armor’s straps hesitantly, maybe afraid the Courier was a hallucination, and drew him in.

   Arcade had put some salve on his lips, something that was lightly sweet and had a texture that clung to the Courier's own mouth. He smelled like the local tub soap recipe, distinct traces of Abraxo and brahmin tallow. His arms were strong around the Courier’s back.

   “Hi?” Arcade asked, repeating the Courier’s greeting. “That’s it?”

   The Courier fished himself out of Arcade’s embrace and looked him over carefully, using his hands to map out all the hard planes of him. His shoulders, his chest, down to his waistband and narrow hips and back around his body to hug him close, wedged between Arcade’s drawn-up knees. No words, but _this is me, this is you_. We’re here together.

   “I can’t stay. But I can’t go. It’s Daisy and the others. They’re not young. In five years, ten years -- who’s going to take care of them when they’re too sick to -- what happens to them? What happens when Daisy can’t get out of bed, when she’s lying there needing someone? What if she wakes up one day, can’t get up, needs a glass of water -- no one to check up on her, just left to lie there in that hotbox of a room --” the tone of Arcade’s nightmares -- “I was traveling with the Followers when my mother died. Daisy held her hand while she went. Who’s going to do that for _her_?” Arcade’s voice was quick and broken. The placid, icy surface was cracked, affording the Courier glimpses into the depths of feeling that coursed beneath. It felt so intensely private, as if Arcade were naked for him and the Courier’s arms were his only cover. “It should be me. I can’t leave them.”

   And he couldn’t stay. They both knew it. It was just pain that had to be swallowed and hope it didn’t rot inside.

   “I’m sorry.” The Courier tried to find something that would act as an antidote. “They’ve got each other. They’ll be all right. They’ve got friends. There are good people here. They’ll miss you, but they …”

   “Don’t need me.”

   “That’s not what I mean.”

   His glasses had slipped off and were somewhere on the mattress with them. Arcade put his burning face against the cool leather shoulder pad of the Courier’s armor, one hand clinging to the belt that looped over his chest, and let the Courier run his fingers through his wavy blond hair. He liked being touched. He had missed that most the last few years. Being explored, warm pressure from someone else's hands making his nerves glow. Having someone claw at your arms as you held them down for an amputation … wasn't quite the same. And they usually got sick on you besides. He closed his eyes and tried to just enjoy the Courier's arms around his shoulders, his fingers following the outlines of Arcade's skull, tracing down to the sunburned patch above his collar. Arcade put a hand up, not to push him away, but because he knew the Courier would grab it -- he did. Arcade sagged back against the wall.

   "I'm just ... tired,” Arcade admitted.

   "Okay."

   "I don't want to run anymore. I don’t want to go.”

   "We'll go together."

    Amazing, how that made it sound … not intolerable.

   Arcade’s chin was surprisingly delicate, tilted in the Courier's hand. The prim lines of his mouth and lips, which the Courier traced with his own, made him beautiful. His hands were rough, the sunburn gave him a fevered look and his eyes were bloodshot, but that handsome symmetry couldn’t be disguised. He was an attractive, clean-looking guy, and in his late 30s he had a few lines at the folds of his eyelids and around his mouth but was still vital and young. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was timelessness from half-dwelling in some far-off, brighter age. Whatever it was, it made the Courier's mouth go dry. His green eyes had not a speck of naivete, evaluating the Courier as he sat back for air. The Courier sat himself cross-legged with his hands settled on Arcade's knees.

   "Why?" Arcade asked quietly. He added, "Just tell me once. I don't need constant cataloging of my virtues. Many and varied though they no doubt are." He laughed thinly, trying to drag his defenses back up around him.

   "Why? Why I -- Well. It isn't the Latin. Or that I'm-not-worthy you dress up as arrogance. Or the way you dodge everyone's questions."

   Arcade wasn't sure what to make of all that. Not exactly complimentary. But moreover, the old anxiety snapped to life. The Courier had obviously given it thought and Arcade never liked it when he knew people were _thinking_ about him. Too often that was the first tug on the thread that unraveled it all. (Would it have been any better if the Courier hadn't had an answer to hand? If it was just _unwinding_...?)

   The hands on his knees gripped harder. "It's that you're something special. You know where we've been, and where we should go. I mean, all of us." It was hard to articulate what the Courier felt, looking at Arcade Gannon. That he wasn't like anyone else. That he had ideas. He carried their history in his head, and a sense of their future. Not like the NCR, who wanted to corral and contain. Not like Mr. House and his rocketship dreams. Arcade wanted something that would come from the people themselves, would raise them up in soul and spirit, not with artificial machines. He was one of the few who were looking up but wouldn’t climb over weaker people or grind them down to get there. If the Courier could help him get humanity on the right track, he'd consider his life well-lived. (It could have happened here, but he had seen it too late. The wheels had already been in motion and there was no way to jam the momentum. That was shame he would carry.) "I want to help you get us there."

   Arcade's eyebrows raised. The Courier had been _listening_ to all those things he had said? (More pressing question, perhaps: sociopolitical pillow talk. _What was his life._ ) He knew he looked skeptical, but he was really ... grateful. Stupidly, completely, desperately _grateful_ that someone didn't think he was a joke, didn't think he was an arrogant son of a bitch with a head full of brahmin shit.

   “I’m not omniscient,” he reminded.

   “No, but …” The Courier smiled and shrugged. Then his face went very serious. "I fucked everything up for you here. I'm sorry. But -- let's go try again."

   "Where?"

   "Anywhere. If you want me."

   Arcade closed his eyes for a moment. "Of course I do." He opened them. The Courier was still there. Not a mirage. “Look. I didn’t mean all that. You didn’t do anything wrong. The Legion’s gone. Maybe this is best.” He didn’t really believe that, not unqualified. “I mean, for here and now. It’s a dirty game, but there are plenty revolutions left until we get it right.”

    What an exhausting notion. But the sudden brightness in the Courier’s eyes infected him with a rush of energy.

    "One more reason I like you,” the Courier said.

   "Yeah?"

   "That thing you do with your tongue."

   Now the Courier's hands were at the inseam of his pants, tracing the stitching up his inner thighs, he was grinning and Arcade felt --

   This. This was what he needed. The Courier's body, naked, mingling with his. One leg hooked over Arcade to keep him close. Quiet, intense. Arcade’s large hand held the two of them together, rubbing, rolling and duelling, his breath hitching as the fire burned so deliciously between them. His muscles winding up, fire in his stomach. He felt suspended in something that was thick and sweet and hot, something that pooled in the brain when two bodies moved together. He could hear the Courier’s small groans as Arcade squeezed his palm around them. The Courier’s hands at his back, digging and leaving some marks. He was close, very close -- his legs were tensed tight, and suddenly the Courier heaved them over, rolling Arcade onto his back and biting at Arcade’s lip. The Courier’s hand snaked down and squeezed him in a vice that broke the building crest and made the tide momentarily retreat.

   The Courier pushed back from him and they looked at each other in a clear light. Arcade laid out on the mattress, the Courier between his knees studying him. It wasn’t a game they had talked out, just an instinctive sense that Arcade was spinning away in his own furnace and they could be more -- do better -- together.

   Because Arcade liked the vulnerability, being open to someone. He liked sex. He hadn’t spent every night of the past few years alone. (Tom Anderson, for one. That had been a fun revelation. Hadn’t brought it up until well after the Courier had sent him to jail ...) His inhibitions were emotional. He and the Courier had spent two weeks before the dam learning each other. But Arcade was a new man now, different inside, and he needed to be rediscovered.

   Now Arcade was back under his hands. The Courier’s mouth against his, pushing and nipping. The firmness of him. Feeling this other body, wanting to wrap around it and sink in. The Courier’s weight on his pelvis, and a finger and thumb circled and pinching, no stimulation, no movement, keeping Arcade just this side of those explosive heights. The Courier sank down between Arcade’s legs, his broad, hard shoulders jostling the soft, sensitive parts of him -- thighs, the backs of his knees, settling himself in that space where one is most vulnerable and intentions are most clear.

   Arcade’s legs were trembling as the Courier made himself comfortable on his elbows. Breath across him, warm, the teasing heat of the Courier’s mouth just next to him. So close, painfully close, a latch straining and ready to break. He was hard and aching to make that last vault up to the plateau, where the stars were gold and the universe folded itself inside-out and he made a frustrated little growl because instead the Courier’s hand was keeping him hanging in space, twisting in the fire, damn it, _just move_. Anything, a little bit. If he could move -- he writhed and the Courier’s strong hand cinched tighter, and the other hand levered on his hip, pinning him to the mattress. Arcade was up on his elbows now, scarcely able to see but met the Courier’s eyes and saw the light in them. Complete: what Arcade was feeling, the power he had, but the power Arcade had over him, too. Pride and want. They understood one another.

   The Courier’s face ducked. He kissed Arcade, right there in the midst of the lightning storm, and suddenly his fingers were gone and it was his mouth, pulling and sucking and letting Arcade’s hips free, throwing the gates wide open.

   Arcade didn’t know exactly what he said, in what language. Some pentecostal mix, the phrases that captured his thoughts so much better than the vernacular. There were sentiments that had tempo to them. Phrases that had insistent forms. Translation turned them eunuch, and Arcade wanted the Courier to know their full strength, virility, their fierce resonance. For them to be as much a part of the Courier as they were of Arcade. Even if he couldn’t understand the words, to hear the _music_. He felt an answering, firm swipe of tongue that spun every atom in him. All his nerves were reaching down toward one place, one tight, warm place where his hardness and his strain were cradled, and God the Courier was good at this. Taking almost all of him, a hum of understanding and agreement, and Arcade’s fingers tangled and pulled at the Courier’s hair, the Courier swallowed around him, and into that hot suction, he came.

   They lay together. The Courier had taken care of himself while taking care of Arcade, and now they caught their breath and reality crept back in.

   Arcade didn't have a plan, and hadn't cared to make one, but now it seemed time. They would get out of here, find some place. Forge their own scrap of Goshen somewhere in this maimed land. He would resume his work, and the Courier ... he would find some way to make himself indispensable. They could go anywhere, it wouldn't matter. He'd stir things up and rise to the top. There was an entire continent past the Colorado. People to help, things to learn ... a world to make. Not _re_ make, Arcade never wanted history to repeat what had gone before. But there were minds and lives to enrich, there was human dignity to rekindle, a path to blaze, and new heights to strive for. The question wasn't where they should end up. The question was where should they _start_.

(   Never forgetting Daisy and the others. But the Courier was right -- they were strong, so strong he still felt like a child beside them, and they had each other. They knew this world and its hardships, and the particular crosses he and they had to bear. They would understand. He would face his own recrimination, not theirs.)

    They could go east, maybe. His lips were near the Courier’s ear. "How far east have you been?"

    "M’hm. I was born near Winnipeg. Came down to Fargo, then through Dakota and Montana with a caravan."

    "Winnipeg. Canada?" Arcade was interested. In another life he would have traveled.

    The Courier nodded, using it as an excuse to move his lips across Arcade's temple. Canada, America. Memories of the Old World had short half-lives. (How had Cass pronounced it? 'Canjadia'?) Except among the oldest ghouls and hold-outs like the Enclave, and rare antiquarians like Arcade, once-impressive signifiers had been robbed of much of their power by the passage of time. It was hard to look backward (and harder to look forward) when you were staring at the ground, hoping a seed would grow. There was history in the blood, though. The Courier had ancestors who had died resisting Canada's annexation, a resistance that had continued up until the day the bombs fell, and he was proud of them. They weren't forgotten. That pride didn't mean commensurate hate, not ... necessarily. His parents had been very broad-hearted. In big things and small things, they had always told him to think about the suffering of good people rather than celebrating the punishment of the bad. "Yeah. Canada."

    "Do you want to go back?"

    "No. I'll tell you later."

    Arcade's eyebrow peaked in surprise. Well, that was ... interesting. They would sit and sort through their baggage together. Later. They'd have time.

    One other part of the past had to be dealt with. The Courier's brushed at Arcade’s hair to get his attention again. "I couldn't get your dad's armor back from them. I'm sorry, I know how much it meant to you."

    "Oh." Arcade paused. The Courier took this as disappointment and pain and folded him more tightly in his arms, but it wasn't really that. The armor had meant a lot -- yes. Maybe too much, when he was directionless and embarrassed, wondering if his father could be proud of a son who wasn't proud of himself. But the old order had passed away. Leaving the dam in ignominy wasn’t his best moment, but he had been there. He had gone, he had fought. Now he was optimistic about the future and what they could achieve. He was proud, damn proud of what he had done and he was sure his father's pride followed. Enough memories of him had filtered down from the Remnants and his mother that Arcade felt secure in that. He didn’t have to chase his father’s approval, he was his own man.

    He would always miss his father. He wished they had been given time to really know each other, that was natural. But it didn't hurt so much, now. He had found peace. "Thank you for trying. But ... it's all right. I don't need it any more."

    "Time to lay him to rest?"

    Mind-reading. That was a neat trick. "Yeah." Arcade smiled contentedly.

* * *

    The Courier left Arcade sleeping, dressed, and went downstairs for an audience. Rex whined in recognition, getting to his feet. The King still looked exhausted and had a Jet inhaler on the table in front of him.

    "Find him?"

    The Courier nodded.

    "You've still got problems."

    The Courier nodded again.

    "Sit down." The King ruffled Rex's ears. "I don't mind doing a good turn for those who've done good for me. But I've got to look out for my boys, and having you here, it's something extra hanging over our heads. Now someone spotted some of those black-armored rangers at the barricades …” The King shook his head. “I'm not saying you've got to go tonight -- nor tomorrow, if you're not ready -- but pretty soon. Pacer's jumpy as hell, and I don't know how long I can keep him in line."

    Out as soon as possible. That suited the Courier, and anyway didn’t surprise him. They were riding the King's goodwill, and while he was a generous man, you couldn't expect eternal largesse.

    The King was looking into Rex's eyes. "You remember I owe you a favor? A big one."

    "I hadn't forgotten."

    The King didn't smile, but he gave the Courier a look of approval. "Good. I like a man who keeps on top of his business. What do you want?"

    The Courier had considered their position. The rangers in black were going to be a rock in their boot, but confront them here, leave a few dead NCR rangers on the Kings’ doorstep, and the Bear would tear through them like nothing. End of the Kings, end of the good they had done and would do. If the King played a long game -- and it looked like he was set to (he had the water pump in his deck) -- the NCR might see the ultimate wisdom in cooperation, especially when the water to Freeside started drying up and unrest fomented again. His time influencing the Mojave was done. The best thing he and Arcade could do now was get out with minimal repercussions.

    "I want help out of Freeside for both of us. Tonight, if possible."

    The King tilted his head in recognition. They weren't trying to wring out his offer of sanctuary. "Leave it to my boys."

    The Courier nodded, paused because it was none of his business, but then he looked down at the Jet inhaler on the table. "You're taking that?"

    "This? Nah. Just some shit Pacer gave me. He thought it'd help me stay awake." The King picked it up and turned it over in his hand. "I hear him all night, sometimes. God knows I'm gonna have to do something about that." The King tossed it back on the table. "But that's my own problem, and nowhere near my biggest. Right now I'm gonna solve yours. You and your friend lie low for awhile longer, someone'll come get you when everything's ready."

* * *

   They slept most of the afternoon, curled up on the mattress with Arcade's arms around the Courier like a vice. When they woke, they didn't know what to do with themselves, so they talked and they "packed". The Courier had grabbed a few things from Arcade’s small collection at the 38, so they were in decent shape. (Three books1, too, the ones that were most dog-eared and penciled, thus the ones the Courier assumed were most well-loved.) Arcade had some articles begged and borrowed from the Kings: a few shirts, an extra pair of pants, three mismatched socks -- it was the thought that counted -- and he stowed these away. Arcade looked at the small, tanned-leather bags, all they had to get them ... who knew where, then at the Courier, who was actually eager to be back on the road. (For safety, and for it’s own sake.) Arcade smiled. "You know, as far as philosophies go, I was never sure which to follow. Ending up a Peripatetic isn't so bad.2"

    A very blank pair of eyes met his. Arcade laughed. The Courier smiled, not sure if he was sharing in the joke, but not bothered either way.

    "I love you." (Arcade tried for nonchalant, but his voice caught, sending his tone into genuine.)

    That, the Courier understood. "I love you."

    Arcade might have flushed. Hard to tell under the sunburn. "Well. Then that's ... settled."

    "Guess so." The Courier grinned.

    There was a double knock at the door. "Hey, fellas. King says put these on and let's go."

   Two NCR uniforms. North Freeside was home to a growing number of NCR troopers, and large camps meant local hangers-on. The soldiers had started farming out laundry duties to Freeside residents who needed a few caps. The Kings paid a few more caps, and got whatever when astray. The Courier and Arcade pulled on the brown uniform jackets and pants and followed their guide.

   They used the back ways through heaps of rubble to move from south Freeside toward north Freeside and the North Gate. That was what they had chosen: northeast, beyond remaining Legion holdings in Utah, toward Colorado and the Plains beyond. They had a small flock of Kings with them, most whom broke off to safeguard the route for retreat as they moved further into north Freeside and NCR territory. The Courier, Arcade, and their guide stuck to the shadows and watched the NCR troopers with rifles under the streetlight.

   From the next block, which was the heart of the NCR's new presence in Freeside, there came sudden shouting. Smoke and a fire flickered to life beyond the squat shape of the Mormon Fort.

   "The hell is that?" the Courier asked. The NCR at the gate were on alert too, discussing among themselves.

   "A distraction."

   Off the Courier's look, their escort grinned. "Someone got paid enough to be a little clumsy with a lantern.That part of the camp's empty. Nobody's gonna die, King's orders. They're just going to be busy for awhile. Good luck!"

   The Courier talked them through the gate. In the confused, shout-filled dark, even their imperfect uniforms passed muster. They had been sent to see why the trickle of water was so damn slow, maybe the pipes had been damaged, this was an emergency, goddamn, the supply cache was up in flames --

   And they passed through into the wasteland.

   There was a special runner on his way to Daisy Whitman, harmless, ordinary prospector c/o Novac. The Courier had topped up the deal with enough caps that the King's personal pride was involved; the package would find her, no matter where she had got to. It was a letter, an explanation that used old codewords and veiled pass phrases. That was the last of Arcade’s business here.

   Arcade looked into the night. The postlapsarian world, burned and decayed. Maybe like a forest fire making way for new growth … but that was for later. No matter the high arch of his ambitions, he always looked reality fully in the face. Colorado, by caravan reckoning, was six weeks away, and leaving the fringes of NCR territory was just trading one set of dangers for another.

   He heard the Courier check his rifle and pop in a fresh clip. _Thy going is not lonely_ ... The Courier caught his eye.

   Yes. "Now lead on," Arcade said, smiling. "In me is no delay.  
    The Courier's hand clapped his shoulder, ran down to brush his fingers, and then the Courier flexed his toes in his boots. "Let's go."

   Arcade pulled their bag onto his shoulder, and the Courier took up his rifle. They turned their backs on the lights of the Strip and the beneficent forces in Freeside, and together they made their way down the crumbling road beneath the stars.

* * *

1 I couldn’t guess what they’d be.  
2 Peripatetic: one who wanders, travels; also, an Aristotelian. Arcade's making a very ... _Arcade_ pun. Who writes this crap?  



End file.
